With the rapid development of Internet and the popularization of multifunctional large-screen mobile phone, a large number of mobile data multimedia services and various high bandwidth multimedia services, such as video conference, television broadcast, video on demand, video advertisement, online education and interactive game, emerge. The multimedia services not only meet the increasing demand for services of mobile users, but also bring new business growth point for the mobile operators. These mobile data multimedia services require that multiple users are able to receive the same data at the same time, and compared with the common data services, are featured with large data volume, long lasting time and sensitive time delay, etc. In order to effectively utilize mobile network resources, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) presents a Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) which is a technology of transmitting data from one data source to multiple targets, realizing sharing of network (comprising core network and access network) resources, and improving utilization ratio of network resources (especially air interface resources). The MBMS service defined by the 3GPP can realize multicast and broadcast of low-rate plaintext message as well as multicast and broadcast of high-speed multimedia services, thereby providing various abundant video, audio and multimedia services. This definitely complies with the development trend of mobile data in future and provides better service prospect for development of the 3rd Generation (3G) digital communication.
At present, the MBMS service is introduced in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system. The MBMS service carries control signalling through a Multicast Control Channel (MCCH) and carries MBMS service data to be transmitted through a Multicast Traffic Channel (MTCH). The MCCH and MTCH divide area based on the MBSFN Area, wherein the MBSFN area consists of a series of cells. Specifically, one MBSFN area comprises one or more cells under the control of base station (eNB). FIG. 1 shows a structural diagram of the MBSFN area in the related art. As shown in FIG. 1, for example, one MBSFN area comprises 19 cells, wherein eNB1 controls the cells 1, 2, . . . , 6; eNB2 controls the cells 7, 8, . . . , 13; and eNB3 controls the cells 14, 15, . . . , 19. As shown in FIG. 1, the 19 cells in the circle compose one MBSFN area.
Given that in the related art, the control signalling and service data of the MBMS service are transmitted through MBSFN synchronous transmission in the whole MBSFN area, so as to enable a User Equipment (UE) to obtain corresponding combination gain during receiving. The MBSFN transmission requires each cell in the MBSFN area to transmit the same data content on the same time-frequency resource, which needs to perform unified scheduling and planning to the resources of each cell. At present, a Multi-cell/multicast Coordination Entity (MCE) network element is utilized to perform unified scheduling and planning for radio resources in the related art, specifically referring to the international standard 3GPP 36.300 v910.
Specifically, one MCE controls transmission of the MBMS service in the whole MBSFN area, that is, the MCE determines control information and service information of the MBMS service transmitted on the MBSFN subframe in the MBSFN area. The eNB executes instruction of the MCE, and completes transmission of the control information and service information of the MBMS service of each cell under its control.
The MCE configures multicast resources (MBSFN subframe and MBSFN frame) of the MBMS services (MTCH) and control signalling (MCCH) born by one MBSFN area. Multiple eNBs (such as eNB1, eNB2 and eNB3 in FIG. 1) under coverage of the MCE configure these multicast resources to all cells (such as cells 1, 2, . . . , 19 in FIG. 1) through system broadcast messages. At the same time, a Broadcast Multicast Service Centre (BM-SC) also transmits the MBMS service data to multiple eNBs (such as eNB1, eNB2 and eNB3 in FIG. 1) in the MBSFN area through an MBMS Gateway (MBMS-GW). FIG. 2 shows a logical diagram of an MBMS service bearing architecture in the related art. As shown in FIG. 2, usually, BM-SC→MBMS-GW→eNB is called user plane data transmission which is used for transmitting the MBMS service data, and the MTCH is adopted for the transmission. BM-SC→MBMS-GW→MCE→eNB is called control plane signalling transmission which is used for configuring control parameters, such as multicast resources, and system information and the MCCH are adopted for the transmission.
The UE can acquire the configuration information of the MCCH in the cell, such as the MCCH Modification Period (MCCH MP), the MCCH Repeat Period (MCCH RP) and other corresponding parameters in the cell, through System Information Block (SIB) 13 of a Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH).
The MTCH is a logical channel. One MTCH bears data of one or more services (for example, one Television (TV) program is one service), and one service is only born in one MTCH. The MTCH is mapped to a Multicast Channel (MCH) for transmission. One or more MTCHs can be mapped to one or more MCHs, that is, multiple MBMS services can be mapped to one MCH.
In the process of transmitting the MBMS service, the application of uplink feedback is also an important function in the related art. The uplink feedback means to report, through an uplink feedback channel, some state attributes of the UE which is receiving or is going to receive the MBMS service to the network side through triggering of the network side or through active reporting of the UE itself. Through the information reported by the UE, the network side can acquire the current more detailed information of the UE. A typical application example is that: each eNB in the MBSFN area requires the UE which belongs to the eNB to feed back the name of the MBMS service which is being received or is to be received by the UE (the uplink feedback flow is triggered by the eNB), and the UE which is receiving or is going to receive the MBMS service feeds back the identities (such as MBMS service IDs) of the MBMS services, which are being received or is to be received by the UE itself, in the uplink feedback channel.
The transmission of MBMS services is realized by common transmission of the control plane (control signalling) and the user plane data. The control signalling informs the UE of the corresponding control parameters and guides the UE to the corresponding position to receive the interested MBMS service (i.e., corresponding user data) of the UE. In the LTE system, this type of control signalling at least comprises SIB2, SIB13, MCCH information and MCH Scheduling Information (MSI) which is also called Dynamic Scheduling Information (DSI). The MBMS service is transmitted through the MTCH. That is to say, the UE can acquire the control parameters of the interested MBMS service (MTCH) of the UE by obtaining this or these control signalling (SIB2, SIB13, MCCH information and MSI). The UE can receive the MBMS service accurately through these control parameters.
The MCCH, MSI and MTCH are transmitted by taking the MBSFN area as a unit, that is, the MCCH, MSI and MTCH are to be transmitted in the whole MBSFN area, wherein the MCCH, MSI and MTCH are transmitted by utilizing an MBSFN combining technology. The MBSFN combining technology requires multiple base stations/cells under control of the base stations to transmit the same data at the same time-frequency position, in this way, signals transmitted by the multiple base stations/cells under control of the base stations are to be superimposed in the air. In terms of receiving by UE, it is considered that there is only one signal source, which increases the receiving gain and improves the accuracy of received data. While, the SIB2 and SIB13 are transmitted by taking the cell as a unit, that is, the transmitted contents of SIB2 and SIB13 in neighbour cells may be different.
Furthermore, the MBMS control info illation included in the SIB2 will inform the UE of allocation of all the multicast resources in the MBSFN area. That is to say, the UE will obtain the multicast resources corresponding to all the MBMS services in the MBSFN area.
The SIB13 comprises the scheduling information of MCCH information corresponding to the MBSFN area and the scheduling information of notification. That is to say, the UE will acquire, through the SIB13, the related control information, such as time-frequency position at which the MCCH information of the MBSFN area is transmitted, Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS), and the position for monitoring the notification.
The MCCH information comprises the related control information of the MBSFN area corresponding to the MCCH information. That is to say, the UE can acquire the related control information of the MBSFN area corresponding to the MCCH information by reading the MCCH information, for example, all the ongoing MBMS services (i.e., the MBMS services that are being transmitted by the network side) in the MBSFN area, the control parameters of the ongoing MBMS services and the resource status of the MCH corresponding to the MBMS services. That is to say, by obtaining the MCCH information, the UE acquires one or more MCHs in the MBSFN area, the ongoing MBMS service corresponding to each MCH, and control parameters (such as parameters MBMS-SessionInfo-r9, sessionId-r9, serviceId-r9 and so on) of these ongoing MBMS services.
The DSI information comprises specific resource scheduling information of each MTCH in the MCH. Specifically, because the MCH comprises data of one or more MBMS services (for example, one or more MTCHs), it is needed to specifically specify the physical resources corresponding to a certain MBMS service through MBMS dynamic scheduling information. In this way, when receiving a certain specified MBMS service (for example, the MBMS service MTCH1 in which the UE is interested), the UE acquires the exact resource of the MBMS service through indication of the MBMS dynamic scheduling information, thereby realizing accurate receiving. For other multicast subframes (for example, the multicast subframes bearing services other than MTCH1) in the MCH, the UE keeps silent state and does not receive its subframe information, thereby saving energy consumption of the UE. In the disclosed related art, the resources scheduled or managed by the MBMS dynamic scheduling information is defined as dynamic scheduling period, such as 320 ms or 640 ms, on length of time. FIG. 3 shows a schematic diagram of logical relation between the setting of the schedule block in the dynamic scheduling period and the MBMS service in the related art. The shadow of bold horizontal lines in FIG. 3 represents the schedule block, and other shadows represent different MBMS services, such as the MBMS service A, the MBMS service B and the MBMS service C in the figure. The blank section represents padding or no data. The dynamic scheduling information uniquely locates resources of one MBMS service through the service sequence (LCID parameter) and the sequence number of the last resource where the MBMS service is located (StopMTCH parameter). For example, as shown in FIG. 3, the MBMS service sequence is that the first one is the MBMS service A, the second one is the MBMS service B and the third one is the MBMS service C, wherein the sequence number of multicast subframe to which the last service data of the MBMS service A corresponds is #3, the sequence number of multicast subframe to which the last service data of the MBMS service B corresponds is #7, and the sequence number of multicast subframe to which the last service data of the MBMS service C corresponds is #10; in this way, it can be uniquely determined that the resources of the MBMS service A are from #1 to #3, the resources of the MBMS service B are from #3 to #7, and the resources of the MBMS service C are from #7 to #10. In the dynamic scheduling information, each MTCH adopts two parameters, namely Logical Channel ID (LCID) and StopMTCH, to implement the above function.
Regarding a certain specific MBMS service (MTCH) in the MBSFN area, the MBSFN combining technology is adopted in the whole MBSFN area to perform transmission. However, in practical applications, sometimes it is not necessary to transmit a certain MBMS service in the whole MBSFN area, for example, there may be no UE receiving the MBMS service in a certain or some cells in the MBSFN area or the number of users receiving the MBMS service is less than a threshold, then transmission of a certain or some MBMS services of a certain or some cells in the MBSFN area is stopped. FIG. 4 shows a structural diagram of stopping a certain or some MBMS services by the cell. As shown in FIG. 4, the cell 2 in the figure represents that there is stopped MBMS service in the cell. Given that, in the cell 2, there is no UE receiving a certain MBMS service (for example, the MBMS service A) or the number of users receiving the MBMS service is less than the threshold, then transmission of the MBMS service A in the cell 2 is stopped. In this way, the UE residing in the cell 2 will not receive the MBMS service A from the cell 2; that is to say, the UE residing in the cell 2 will not receive the MBMS service A transmitted by the cell 2 since the cell 2 stops transmission of the MBMS service A. In addition, if there are multiple MBSFN services, such as service A, service B, service C, . . . , service N, in the MBSFN area, the cell 2 in FIG. 4 only stops the service A, and the services from B to N are not stopped.
Considering that the MBMS service (for example, the MBMS service A) adopts the MBSFN combining technology to perform synchronous transmission in the whole MBSFN area, although the UE residing in the cell 2 cannot receive the MBMS service A transmitted by the cell 2, it may receive information of the MBMS service A transmitted by the neighbour cells. That is to say, if the UE residing in the cell 2 wants to receive information of the MBMS service A, although it cannot receive the information of the MBMS service A transmitted by the cell 2, it may receive the information of the MBMS service A transmitted by the neighbour cells (for example, the cell 1, the cell 3, the cell 4, the cell 5 and the cell 6) in an MBSFN way. However, the quality of signal received through the neighbour cells is decreased to some extent.
It can be seen that, in the related art, one or more MBMS services can only be started or stopped in the whole MBSFN area, but the starting and stopping of part cells in the MBSFN area cannot be realized. In addition, in the MBSFN area, if the transmission of a certain or some MBMS services in a certain or some cells under control of an eNB or in all cells under control of a certain or some eNBs is stopped, then the transmission of the stopped MBMS service data (MTCH) is not continued in this or these stopped cells. However, regarding the problem that how to transmit the control plane message (control signalling) on this or these stopped cells, no corresponding solution is provided at present.